The Oasis reunion is no excuse for women just to roll with it

Not all women who remember the 90s look back as fondly as the beered-up blokes defined it, says Ashley Davies

‘Cruel’ Britannia? Liam Gallagher in a union flag parka (Anthony Devlin/PA)

Much of the excited chatter about the Oasis reunion has focused on Noel and Liam Gallagher’s stormy relationship, about how to boost your chances of getting tickets, and whether young women who “just want to watch them play Wonderwall” deserve to be there (the cheek!).

We’ve had fun laughing at hardcore fans’ haircuts, speculation about whether the brothers will complete the tour without assaulting each other, and amusing reminders about all their daft rhyming couplets.

It’s reasonable to assume that a large proportion of the men who are most looking forward to the concerts are guys in their forties and fifties, eager to snatch back a taste of their youth. And who can blame them? Given that, health-wise, some of them might now be swaggering through sniper’s alley, they’re probably more into Gaviscon than gak these days, the bliss of being free and young and “mad fer it” without consequences is nothing but a distorted memory.

Thing is, most of the public recollections from the Oasis heyday seem to be coming from a male perspective. Fair enough. But ask women of a similar age what they remember of this period – specifically the laddishness of many of the band’s fans – and you’ll hear a different account of things.

Sure, there was a lot of fun (my God, so much fun at times) but the normalisation of misogynistic behaviour made life uncomfortable and at times frightening for a lot of women. It wasn’t uncommon for us to be groped with impunity – and not just at gigs, where grabbing can easily be disguised. Often they didn’t even try to hide it, and sometimes it felt as if the worst instincts of oafish football fandom were barging their way into our beloved indie spaces.

The constant objectification of young women was nasty, too. You were expected to laugh it off when they debated, in front of you, who was deemed the “most shaggable” – often in the workplace. If you complained about any of this you’d be dismissed as being po-faced. The fact that being regarded as humourless was considered worse than being a low-key sexual harasser tells you all you need to know about the absurd power imbalance during that period.

Casual misogynists didn’t do it all alone though: they had powerful wingmen in the shape of lads’ mags. In addition to amplifying the hero status of men who behaved badly (such a playful term!), the publications did an effective job of brainwashing young women into thinking they should engage in competition with each other for the most excremental of prizes: the approval of sexist louts. Playing along was even framed for some as being empowering.

It might sound as if I’m overreacting, but if this hasn’t been your own experience, do listen to a woman who was in her teens or twenties in the 1990s. Many will acknowledge that it takes a long time to unpick that internalised misogyny.

I’m not blaming Oasis directly (nor am I critiquing their music here), but, like a few other lad bands, they did seem to attract a heck of a lot of blokes who didn’t respect women. It’s a bit like some religions: you don’t so much have an issue with the faith as with the faithful.

Having said that, it’s already been noted that Noel Gallagher, as recently as this year, has used “woke” (which, we shouldn’t need to keep reminding people, means being alert to injustice, particularly racism) as a pejorative term. And, admittedly further back, Liam has form using homophobic slurs. When a public figure with a huge following behaves as if it’s OK to trample on minorities’ concerns, it’s to be expected that some of their less forensically-minded fans will follow suit.

By the way, if anyone thinks this is about snobbery, perhaps what they’re betraying is their own belief that only working-class people behave boorishly. Look no further than the Bullingdon Clubs of this world for proof of how untrue this is.

We’ve come a long way since the Nineties. It’s still intimidating being outnumbered by coked-up men larging it at enormous concerts, but it’s easier to call out unacceptable behaviour and we have more legal protections than we did back then. We’re not gonna roll with it.